


Next to Me

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Not Beta Read, POV Natasha Romanov, Past Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Starbucks, teen and up for a suggestive moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 13:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10309265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: The first time he says anything about it she laughs, not because it’s a ridiculous idea, but—yes, okay, yes, because it’s a ridiculous idea.“Can you imagine,” she says, “the two of us, after an op, going to Starbucks?”He leans against the car, and she watches the way the neon light from the bar rests so easy on his face. “I could, actually. They’d say, ‘One grande mocha for the good looking guy over there, and a venti caramel macchiato for the pretty redhead next to him’.”“A venti, huh? Breaking the bank.”Sam ducks his head, kicks at a small rock. “Yeah, well. You’re worth it, Nat.”____________Sam/Nat from Nat's POV. Multiple scenes.





	

____________

 

The first time he says anything about it she laughs, not because it’s a ridiculous idea, but—yes, okay, yes, because it’s a ridiculous idea.

“Can you imagine,” she says, “the two of us, after an op, going to Starbucks?”

He leans against the car, and she watches the way the neon light from the bar rests so easy on his face. “I could, actually. They’d say, ‘One grande mocha for the good looking guy over there, and a venti caramel macchiato for the pretty redhead next to him’.”

“A venti, huh? Breaking the bank.”

Sam ducks his head, kicks at a small rock. “Yeah, well. You’re worth it, Nat.”

The last person who said something like that said a different name and ended up in SHIELD’s holding cells. She smiles at Sam, an almost sad thing, and gets in the driver’s seat. He doesn’t say anything about it for the rest of the night.

______

 

“Nat?” Steve says. He leans against her doorway, arms folded.

She’s sitting on her bed turning her phone over and over in her hands. “Trouble in paradise, Stevie?”

He winces. She smiles. “C’mon, Nat, we talked about that.”

“You shouldn’t’ve let Bucky tell me,” Nat says. She wiggles her phone so he can see the screen.

“Honestly? ‘Stevie’ with a bunch of little hearts? That’s my name in your contact list?”

She grins and says, “They’re hearts with tiny Cap Shields in them, Tony made the emoji,” and he sighs dramatically.

It’s a small room and his bulk takes up a good fifth of it. That’s not true. Nat clears her throat. “Did you need something? Computer files hacked, political figures assassinated, help figuring out a Christmas present for Bucky? Because I think in that case—” she pauses, winks “—less is more.”

Steve blushes and she wishes Bucky was there to see. “Um. I just wanted to see how you were.”

“Peachy,” she says. From the way he fidgets—“He said something, didn’t he.”

His flush deepens, spreading to his ears. “I know a little,” he admits sheepishly.

“I’m assuming he told you I mercilessly turned him down? That’s usually what I hear happens when Mr. Nice Guy asks out the Black Widow.”

She’s gotten better at reading Steve’s mannerisms, so she scoots closer to the headboard when he comes further into the room. He sits on the end of the bed, head bowed in acknowledgement. She hugs a pillow and hands him one.

“Thanks,” Steve says, tucking it under his chin. He looks at her calmly, eyebrows pinching just so slightly. “Who’s said that about you?”

Nat shrugs and holds his gaze.

He sighs again. This is a record, probably; most sighs elicited from Steve Rogers outside of a meeting with Tony Stark. She files this away as he says, “Nat, I’m not interrogating you. Asking as a friend.”

“Steve,” she says levelly, “I appreciate that, but the expression you’ve got is the same one you had when that businessman looked down on Clint’s hearing aids, and wreaking havoc on my jilted lovers isn’t going to help anything.”

Steve nods once. She’s looking for a conversation topic and dismisses fifteen before he says, “Have you ever seen _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_? Sa—ah, Rhodey suggested it at Thanksgiving, said it was something no ninety-plus-year-old would have missed.”

“Have I seen—do you have to ask?”

______

 

The second time it comes up, sheets rustle.

“Nat?”

“Hmm?”

“If we’d been anyone else—”

Pause.

“Still us, just—just not with all of this.”

They wouldn’t be, can’t be them without all of this.

“Anyone else?”

It wouldn’t be a lie, what she’s thinking, because the scenario is impossible.

“Yeah.”

Right?

Pause. She takes his hand, twines their fingers together.

“Yeah, I think. Maybe.”

______

 

“You look like you could use some frosting,” Bucky says. It’s movie night and after last week he’s been getting into the baking channel, and Steve says he takes over the counter most days. It’s nice to see him like this. Steve told her how he looked when he went under, and it’s just, she thinks, it’s just really nice to see him with life in his face.

Nat hops up on the counter and ignores Steve nudging her to get off and says, “Do I?”

Bucky takes her in. She watches his expression stay carefully neutral as he notices every scrape on her arms and face. She’d just finished a mission before coming over. “Yeah, a little,” he says mildly. He hands her a mixing bowl and says, “There’s butter in the fridge.”

“And what do I do with that?” There’re a ton of plums, a platoon of plums, spread over every shelf in the fridge. At the very very back there’s a pack of stick butter, so she takes it out.

Bucky hands her a mixer and demonstrates how to beat the butter, telling her to go until it’s nice and fluffy. He takes care in his movements; there’s a simple joy to creating something and it’s filling him. She’s jealous of him.

Steve gets a thumbful of frosting when Bucky’s back is turned. He holds a finger to his lips and Nat nods, amused. Steve exaggerates sneaking up behind Bucky, his movements big and jerking and enough to have let her kill him fifteen times in as many different ways, if they had been fighting just then. Bucky looks up at the last moment, when Steve’s thumb is already  _this_ close from his forehead, and he yelps.

“Simbaaaaaaaa,” Steve shouts, grinning. The majority of the frosting catches in Bucky’s hair and Bucky glares like that cat Sam showed them all on the internet and she’s laughing so hard she’d breathless, not for the first time today but definitely for the best reason today.

Bucky shakes his head and the frosting plops against his cheek. “What does that even mean?” he asks. Then: “Why am I in love with you?”

“Dunno,” Steve says, and licks the frosting off his thumb.

“You’re both dorks,” Nat says. They make mock outraged faces, but she’s smiling.

______

 

Clint says something about it to her at target practice the next day, and she pretends not to know what he’s talking about.

“Don’t, Nat,” he says, adjusting his hearing aids.

She adjusts her aim, says, “Don’t what?” and fires off six shots. Two to the chest, two to the heart, two to the head. There are three holes in the target.

“Play dumb.” He pulls three arrows back, releases, and his target is identical to hers.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Clint folds his arms and faces her. “You do,” he says, his voice even. “Sam.”

His name ricochets off her lungs on her next inhale. She says, “What about him?”

“You like him,” and here she reloads her gun. “He likes you. Why not go for it?”

“Like Budapest, right?” she says, and here she fires.

Clint draws back his bow. “Except with a happier ending.”

“I don’t know,” she says. He looks at her and releases the tension in the string. Another perfect spread, even without looking. “We’re friends, right? That’s pretty happy to me.”

A smile tugs on the corner of his mouth. “You’re soft.”

She shrugs. “I’m human.”

______

 

The third time, and she’s not thinking when she kisses him. He’s like tasting a live wire; a bad idea, but electrifying.

He’s got her thinking up bad analogies. This is—he lightly bites her bottom lip and she gasps—this is bad, probably. She struggles to remember the mortality rate of what they do, trying to remind herself that this is a bad idea. It doesn’t work.

“Sam?” His name is breathy on her lips.

“I’m here,” he says, and then he’s _there_ too.

She kisses her way through it, as much as she can, and it’s a bad idea being unmade like this by him and she knows it. And yet.

“Sam.”

“I’m here.”

______

 

Maria’s going to take her to get her uniform redesigned and weaponized. She’s always liked Maria; she’s as straightforward as can be in their respective jobs. She can put up with Tony anyway, which isn’t easy.

“You look like you could use a drink,” Maria says when Nat walks in.

She’s just extracted a target from a little town in Pennsylvania who’d been attempting another version of the super soldier serum. Steve had gone with her just in case, but she hadn’t needed him; her target had been asleep when she picked the lock on his front door. She’d taken his computers and checked for a backup server and then called Fury’s perimeter squad to take the building.

It wasn’t a rough day. She could’ve done all of this in her sleep. If she looks like she needs a drink, it’s because of Sam.

She smiles and turns the statement back on Maria with, “So do you,” and she can tell Maria caught the evasion.

Maria allows the subject change. “Thought I was keeping it together,” Maria comments with a sigh. “Pepper’s got some ideas for the company, it’s been a little difficult getting the board on her side.”

“She’s got it handled,” Nat says. They start walking to the door. “Pepper’s a tough one.”

“That she is.” They’re in the elevator now; Maria pushes the button for the sixteenth floor. Tony’s lab.

It’s a fast elevator, but she’s very positive Maria wants to ask her about something, and that thought makes the trip feel like it takes an age. Maria’s been eyeing her carefully ever since Nat pushed through the doors.

The elevator dings and Nat says, “Ask.”

Maria doesn’t pretend not to know what she means. “Something going on with you and Wilson?”

“Don’t ask me that,” she says in response, and walks the way the Widow would into Tony’s lab.

______

 

She’s thinking about it this time. Really thinking about it. She’s propped herself up on her elbows, lying on the carpet. She’s watching him instead of the movie, ignoring Clint pelting her with popcorn and the fact that Steve and Bucky are making out in the armchair in the corner.

It’s _Better Off Dead,_  which is a little more lighthearted than its title would imply, and he’s pretty like this. Watching it while watching her watch him.

There’s a lot she can’t give herself, nevermind him. No kids, no rest from nightmares, no guarantee that it’ll be all of her and not just one layer after another.

Clint hits her in the nose and she flips him off without looking. He laughs a little, enough that Tony flaps a hand at him to shut up, and then his laughter is muffled by his hand. It’s good to hear him laugh. She smiles.

He’s not what she imagined back then. She’d always liked fairy tales; while she was in the Red Room, she imagined breaking herself out most days, but sometimes she pictured someone like Clint or Steve busting down the door and leading everyone to the sunlight.

Sam’s not that knight. He flies instead of breaking down walls and he’s sharper than she thought he would be. He’s not as settled as the knight she’d imagined; going from quiet back to active duty never seemed like something she’d do, if she was out.

She doesn’t imagine ever being out of all this. But if she were, she’d lie low and focus inwardly. Keep her nose clean, at least on record. Sam’s not like that.

Next to her he’s unpredictable and sure at the same time. Next to her, he inches a pinky finger toward her hand, and she lets him poke the side of her hand. She bumps his shoulder with her own. Next to her he smiles wide as the sky and she snorts quietly because there’re the lame comparisons again. Next to her. It strikes her that he feels right, next to her.

______

 

The next time it comes up it’s their holiday party. Everyone’s at the compound and each corner of the living room is decorated to represent everyone’s different holiday, and she bumps into Sam underneath the mistletoe.

It’s not an accident. She’s tilting a little where she stands, slopping a drink onto the floor so anyone watching would think she’s drunk. She can’t get drunk, not anymore; whatever they did to her in the Room was to keep her free of distractions, so alcohol has no effect anymore.

She’s tried. But staggering now and looking up at him, at how nice he looks in his green shirt, she wonders if maybe she is a little drunk. He laughs and steadies her and it’s not loud, so she whispers it in his ear.

He frowns. “Not like this,” he says, shaking his head. “Not when you don’t mean it.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“Sure you aren’t.”

She straightens and flattens her tone back to normal. “I’m not. I mean it.” He raises his eyebrows, and she goes on. “I can’t get drunk. And I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it, Sam.”

He heard her and understood but he’s still shaking his head and pulling away. “Not like this,” he says, and adds “You don’t have to pretend for me” and walks away.

______

 

A knock on her door. She pokes her head out of the covers and mumbles blearily when the door opens. It’s Steve, she can vaguely see his outline in the doorway, and he says, “Can I come in?”

She makes a noise that he interprets as a ‘yes’ and that’s good, because this means he’s closing the door and stepping across the room in two steps and curling up next to her on the bed. His weight pulls the covers tighter around her and she elbows him until he crawls underneath them with her.

Immediately she scoots back so he’s curved around her and he pulls her closer. He says, quietly, “You look like shit.”

“Language,” she says sleepily. Steve huffs an annoyed sort of laugh.

He says, “How long have you been in here?”

“When was that party?” she asks, and he settles his chin on the top of her head. It’s not romantic but it’s perfect and steady and she leans into that feeling.

All he says is, “Oh, Nat,” before she falls asleep again.

______

 

Clint stops by to try and drag her out of her room the next day and she’s pretty sure it’s because Steve said something. Clint says, standing in the doorway, “Budapest?”

“Budapest,” she says. It’s alarming how close she is to crying. “I don’t wanna lose him, too.” Clint pulls the covers back from over her head and sighs when he sees her blurry eyes and knotted hair. She’s very aware that she probably smells like she’s been in her room for the last five days. She says, “I don’t want you here when I look like this.”

“I’ve seen worse,” Clint says lightly. Then: “It’s different this time, huh?”

She sniffs. It’s not an act. “What d’you mean?”

Clint says, “You love him,” and something about how gently he says it makes her want to cry again.

“I love you, too,” she says, even though she knows he’s about to say it’s different.

And he does and he rubs her back and he says, “Go get him,” and he says it with a squeeze of her shoulders.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be gotten,” she says, and pulls the blanket back up to her ears.

“He does.” Clint tugs the blanket down a little and the air’s cool on her ear. “Trust me. He looks at you like I used to.”

______

 

The last time she says anything about it she’s holding a grande mocha in one hand and a venti caramel macchiato in the other. She’s leaning against her car, waiting; he usually stops by this Starbucks during his morning run. She checks her watch and takes a deep breath. Anytime now.

A shadow jogs to a stop beside her, and she smiles. It’s not a Widow smile, this time.

“How you doing?” Sam says, panting. He doubles over and looks up at her and seems to take in what she’s holding for the first time.

She says, “Not too bad,” but her heart’s pounding very, very fast.

He stands up and puts his hands on his hips, still trying to bring his breathing back to normal. “Is this—this for me?”

“If you want it,” Nat says.

Sam folds his arms now. “What do you want?”

She smiles a little and holds out the mocha, and his fingers brush hers when he takes it.

“You’re sure?” he asks. “You really want this?”

“It feels right,” Nat says, “when you’re next to me,” and he grins and takes a sip of coffee.

____________

 

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly Sam and Nat deserve sone more love. I wanna write a mutlichaptered fic for them at some point, but until then I hope this is okay.
> 
> Thanks for reading! [Come say hi on Tumblr :)](http://untiltheendofthelinebuck.tumblr.com)


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